Octopuses and Gardens

[mallorys_camera]

Spent much of yesterday trying to parse how Flavia will react to the news of Neal's death, since I don't want to repeat the Mimi phone call even from a Rashomon view.

Maybe she replays the events of the weekend they just spent together, wondering what she didn't see? I dunno. It irks me that I'm so removed from the creative source that these kinds of plot details aren't flowing! I blame the Schlock gig.

###

In other news, there was frost last night! You can't really plant while frost still rules the night. Hopefully, that will be the last of it.

Also, the New Paltz Community Garden Row Check Committee dinged my garden, citing "Needs general tidying of odds & ends."

What the fuck does that mean?

The garden is vast, which is why they rely on ridiculous bureaucratic measures like a Row Check Committee I suppose, but still. There are no authoritarians like left-wing progressive types who are suddenly put in charge of something.

You have to join a committee, too. I joined the Events Committee. It's filled with the Queen Bee types that 20 years ago, as the mother of a high school jock (Ichabod!), I spent my days avoiding. There's a text thread. The text thread is where these women vie with one another over which delicious treat they will be bringing to the next event—

I will bake cupcakes! 🧁 🧁🧁

I will bring hibiscus, elderberry, and mint tea so we can do an herbal tea tasting! 🍵🍵🍵

I will bring wholesome muffins! (No emoji. She lost points.)

I will not bring a goddam thing!

###

They've made a movie from Remarkably Bright Creatures, which was one of my favorite books a couple of years back, so last night I watched it.

Surprisingly good!

I mean—not a cinematic masterpiece or anything. But Sally Field and Lewis Pullman are excellent in the leading roles, the evocation of life as usual in a pretty little town in the Pacific Northwest was engaging, and the CGI octopus was awesome. It's a sentimental movie without being cloying. I cried buckets!

Octopuses have always fascinated me as the prime example of convergent evolution. For example: Their eyes have a cornea, lens, iris, and retina, the same system humans and other vertebrates use, and yet humans and octopuses diverged from their common ancestor 500 million years ago, long before the development of ocular organelles in either phylum.

They are extremely intelligent, but their neurons aren't myelinated (i.e. insulated) the way vertebrate neurons are. These neurons are able to transmit signals rapidly because they are so thick. Most of an octopus's neurons are not centralized into a brain but spread among their tentacles, which are not mere arm analogs but sophisticated sensory organs.

And despite Remarkably Bright Creatures' remarkably appealing Marcellus, octopuses are not social in the slightest. They have no equivalent to cultural learning. Both males and females die shortly after a reproduction cycle is complete, which makes for short lifespans, typically between one and five years. This is really fascinating to me because, as far as I can tell, vertebrate intelligence evolved as a tool for managing social interactions. I mean, what other function does intelligence perform? So, if they're not social, why did octopuses become intelligent?

Comments

[asakiyume]

here are no authoritarians like left-wing progressive types who are suddenly put in charge of something.
--LOL!

My eyes are rolling hard at the special teas. Our church has a thing where they make meals two weekends a month for people who use Meals on Wheels (b/c Meals on Wheels doesn't make weekend meals). For a long while I was on the dessert making committee, but yeah, just couldn't keep up with the Joneses on that. The things some people made!

[adoptedwriter]

Queen Bees…. Sooo annoying!